The Timetrade Side Stories
by chromemuffin
Summary: A series of one-shots that covers the backstories of the cast from the main story, The Timetrade. These are the events that take place in the past that cannot be covered in as much detail in the main story due to plot constraints. 01: Let me spin you the tale of the Hero-King...
1. The Hero-King

**The Timetrade ****Side Stories**

**WARNING:** Some of these one-shots will contain spoilers for certain characters' backstories that may be revealed in the main story at some point. However, the one-shots treat these events as more "in the moment" while in the main story they are treated as the past and looked at retrospectively. If you want to find out all of the backstories through the main story, don't read the side stories.

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**The Hero-King**

Wulf drifted in and out of our lives like the wind, as restless as his namesake, and was as wild as one in nature. The first time we met was upon a battlefield soaked in the blood of soldiers and rebels alike, during the first months in my life in which I had actually come to view what was left of the sky as a beautiful thing. Kleitos had taught me the old children's game of finding shapes in the clouds and giving them names - and it was a habit I often indulged in after a battle.

The young man who had been to Kleitos like a brother was never perturbed by my silence, my unwillingness to talk. He approached me that day where I sat on the artificial grass outside the training center with Kleitos, who was fiddling with some reports on a holographic computer. Just like the day we met, he was humming and smiling as he walked and knelt before me.

Wulf was a tall and thin young man whose bones protruded from his clothes like a ghostly doll. He wore the same tan and grey uniform as we did, but his always seemed a bit loose. In one of his hands was the silver instrument he always carried around off the battlefield. It had fine strings and gleamed in the broken sunlight.

Kleitos shifted his sturdy frame, knocking me off balance, as I had been leaning against his broad back to rest as I cloud-watched. Whatever silent conversation they were having ended moments later when Wulf sat down and plucked at the strings on his instrument.

"Want to hear a song?"

"Sure," Kleitos nodded. He never said no.

Wulf smiled. Cloudy, unseeing hazel eyes stared at me as if they could still discern my figure. "This song is for you, Kallias. It suits your name: Kallias Khosrow."

I didn't know what to say to that, but nodded anyway. I didn't think that my name was anything special. I didn't actually know what it meant, but it didn't sound like it meant anything.

I closed my eyes as he began to play, the thin notes of the instrument flying across the field. Wulf's songs were always melodic and often soothing, but they were also mournful, wailing tunes that sent shivers down my spine.

_"Devourer of men, darkness's lord | from the depths of hatred you live._

_Born by the life-blood of beasts called men | you break the grace of hope._

_Battle-bold bringer of death's cry - the world waits | for the breath of her foe._

_"Child of holy blood, you are born | and blessed by dragon-fire,_

_smothered by the swan's endless | wine-red song of war._

_Wretched whelp you'll go by the dragon's will, you'll | flee west to Fate._

_Aimless and armed you | and your brothers-in-arms_

_follow the flame of | the face of the slaughter-dewed moon._

_"Oh my Prince, your present | from your Mother: it was Polaris._

_Oh my Prince, your present | from your Father: it is the People-King._

_Riding the wind's child red with blood | your respect is with the dead._

_"Fly to the freedom of | the sellsword's unknown fate or_

_by the battle-light's blade | end the darkness dragon's blight._

_Beloved by the people, battle-borne and | so bold is the lord of men._

_Hero-king blessed by the hall of war | let us the minstrels be the helm_

_Of a thousand tales of | you and the travels of your friends."_

As the last notes died on the stiff breeze, Wulf sat back and tilted his head to the patchwork sky he could no longer see. He let his somewhat long dark blond hair free from its loose ponytail, combing a hand through the knotted strands. Before the incident, it had been quite short, like a soldier's cut. Had it really been that long since we fought on the same battlefield?

"I'm going to be deployed soon," Wulf said at last. His voice was bereft of emotion, as if he was reading from a script. Even though both Kleitos and I drew in noticeably sharp breaths, he seemed to ignore us. "To the north. Looks like I'll be leaving ahead of you two...sorry...I'm going to break our promise. It looks like we won't be able to see that peaceful future come to pass together."

Icy claws gripped my heart, tearing up my throat so that I couldn't talk. Wulf sat alone, hands loosely holding his instrument, but his unseeing eyes were foggy and distant. It was as if he was already leaving us behind in that very moment.

"How can they do that?" Kleitos hissed in a low, dangerous voice. I didn't shift away, but I could feel the tremors along his back. "It's thanks to you that the last mission even succeeded and look at what it did to you! You can barely see anymore and this is how they repay you?"

Wulf smiled sadly. "This is the world we live in. This is why you two must succeed. You must make sure that people like us never have to be born. That a world like this one will never be created."

I never had a chance to ask Wulf what his song meant for me - did he so dearly want us to be like the heroes of myth, who could save the world with a swing of their swords? But the moment we had left in that artificial field of emerald grass and the sharp, fake scent of floral air were not for such questions. We sat together for the last time, the three of us, listening to the quiet tunes of Wulf's instrument until the sun fell into the horizon.

* * *

In case you haven't caught on yet, Kallias Khosrow is the only person in this series whose perspective is told through the first person point of view. He is also the narrator of the italicized part of the first chapter of _The Timetrade _in which the navigators are still in their time. Make of it what you will.

I wrote that poem in Old English meter to the best of my ability, but I also took some liberties with the rules. I might come back and edit it again at a later date. The lines | that you see are substitutes for the caesurae (breaks in between words) that are normally found in Old English poetry. Also make of this poem as you will.

Most of these one-shots will be short, just as a warning.


	2. Pipe Dream

**The Timetrade ****Side Stories**

**WARNING:** There is a major spoiler at the end for Etaín's character backstory. If you mind, stop at the paragraph starting with "To this day..."

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**Pipe Dream**

Etaín never expected to fall in love with her husband. Even if her future self traveled back in time and told her that she would marry this man _and_ bear his child, she would have laughed at the impossibility of such a statement. Everyone who knew Etaín would have laughed right alongside her, saying that she had a better chance of adopting and raising one of the many orphans running around than marrying Gilbert Tyrrhenus_._

It was funny how fate worked, even in a world where mankind had learned to traverse the stars and leap into alternate planes of existence. The simplest parts of her married life were the ones that made her the happiest, not the possibility of newly developed weapons from dimension HK-470 that could secure one of the Capitol's supply bases for the rebel army's use. Those were the types of news that should have made her happy, not her husband's elated smile upon finding out that they were going to have a child.

Gilbert seemed unconcerned, or rather, wasn't thinking at all of the possibility that their future child could be orphaned just as they had been so many years ago. The moment her doctor friend told her the news, Etaín felt vaguely sick like she had been stabbed in the gut and had food poisoning at the same time. In fact, the pleasant smile she had worn while speaking to her long-time friend faded to a blank, half pleading and half panicked expression.

"It's all up to you," her friend had said with a sympathetic smile. "You're an important member of the resistance, but I don't think anyone who matters would begrudge you if you wanted to go through with this. Future generations and all."

Except they both knew just how empty that expression really was in these times. The sky had begun to fracture three years ago - Gilbert himself had traveled to the future and saw what would become of their world. He refused to tell Etaín the details, though she had read them all in his mission report later on.

What was the point in having a child who would never grow old? If the world was to end during the prime years of next generation's lives, what was the point in giving birth to them only to show them this ugly, wretched, hopeless world? Etaín blinked slowly as she examined her husband's bright blue eyes shine with the promise of a child in her belly. He had dark circles under his eyes and his usually bright red hair was the color of a rusted coin, but he was smiling like he had seen the sun for the first time in his life.

"Is this a good thing, Gil?" Etaín asked hesitantly, looking across the room to the empty metal walls of their narrow apartment. Since they both worked directly for the resistance, they were afforded fairly nice accommodations compared to the rest of the citizens. As a little girl growing up surrounded by the ragged mountain ranges and depleted forests of her hometown, she would never have imagined earning this much luxury in her life.

He had a puzzled look on his face as he walked over and knelt in front of her - she was sitting on the edge of the ratty excuse for a couch that someone had found and shoved in here. She couldn't help but smile weakly at him, reaching out to vaguely brush her fingertips along the edges of his hair.

"Of course it is," he said in that normal, infuriatingly righteous voice that she both hated and loved. He acted so stupidly innocent, like he couldn't possibly be wrong and everyone else was a bit crazy for not understanding that simple fact. "We're gonna have a baby! Isn't that amazing? Why aren't you excited?"

Etaín groaned. "Stop sounding like that," she demanded, glaring at him. Even though he was physically occupying a lower position compared to her, Etaín somehow felt like she was losing ground here.

"Stop sounding like what? That I'm excited? Look, even if _you_ aren't excited, I can't stop what _I'm_ feeling."

"Like a kicked puppy," Etaín shot back. "Seriously, you went from being an arrogant jerk to a...a..."

"Cute jerk?"

"_Manipulative jerk,_" she corrected. "The kicked puppy face is only cute on kids. Not grown men."

Gilbert laughed and stood to his full height, which was honestly only a little taller than Etaín, who had always towered over the other girls she knew as a child. He ran a hand through his dusty red hair, smiling even though his entire arm was actually trembling a bit, and not from excitement.

Etaín sighed and shifted over, making enough room for him to sit beside her. "Come, you look like you're about to fall over. Was the last jump rough?"

Her husband breathed a quiet sigh, taking a graceful-for-a-nearly-dead-person seat on the couch. "I still love how they call it the timetrade," he commented with a quiet laugh of mirth. "They're just alternate dimensions. And they all suck. We found the tech we wanted, though, and we lost a few good guys in that world."

The thin smile he gave her made Etaín feel even worse about the child in her stomach. Not because she hated it after just discovering that it was living inside her, but because she almost wanted to keep it just to see Gilbert smile like he used to back when they were kids.

She turned away from him. She knew why he liked the idea of a child so much despite the truly horrendous things he had to see whenever the resistance army sent him dimension jumping with one of their newly acquired timepieces. Gilbert had never been as pessimistic as herself, not by a long shot.

It was still a wonder to her and her surviving friends that they even got along. But Gilbert had, a long time ago, said he would never call someone who was not his equal in strength a friend, lover, or anything else.

Gilbert didn't have many friends. At least, not until they got really involved in the resistance. He had more nowadays, but in the past, there had been only a few people he really trusted with his back. And somehow, Etaín had become one of them. The dark haired, spindly-legged girl who used to get into the nastiest, pettiest fights with the most arrogant kid in town, actually ended up falling in love with him.

Fate was a funny thing.

"So, are you keeping it?" Gilbert asked brightly.

Etaín did not have just one reason for marrying Gilbert Tyrrhenus, just as she did not have just one reason for keeping the baby. It was a myriad of little things like the glint in his blue eyes, the hope in his smile when she told him the news, or even his ridiculously self-righteous attitude that made him disobey commanding officers even if it meant a beating.

"Yes," she nodded. "I will. So you better not die on me, you hear? If I'm going to keep it and go through the hell of bring it into this world, we're going to raise it together."

Gilbert smiled. "Of course! As if I'd be a deadbeat father - in the literal sense of the word, too."

There were many things about her husband that she could not change, like his sense of adventure that led him to alternate dimensions or his haughty tone when he started to accumulate one too many accomplishments, but Etaín was sure that there were also things about herself that Gilbert both loved and hated.

To this day, she knows that it was her compete willingness to throw away a precious life if Gilbert had not been so enthusiastic about the two of them becoming parents. She knows that if she were given the same options again, she would never be willing to part with her child, but perhaps she is only able to say that in retrospect.

She also knows why Gilbert wanted to be a father. And really, she can forgive him for it completely, and has sworn to both her dead husband and child that she would never again bring another life into this world.

Sometimes it bothers her. Other times she forces herself to think of all the other worlds in which her child and possibly even Gilbert lived through that time. She's just going to have to be satisfied with that much because it is more than she deserves.

* * *

It's a shame he's dead, because Gilbert was really fun to write. Like most of the navigators, he is based on a historical/mythological figure which is why he is so over the top...he has a right to be in his source material. He originally had blond hair and blue eyes, but I realized he might look a little too similar to some canon characters so I changed it to red and blue. Honestly, Etaín is the only one who can put up with him long enough to conceive a child with him. He's good-looking, but just ends up chasing (almost) everyone away with how annoying he is, haha.

Also, both of them had bad reasons for wanting a kid (Gilbert's is less obvious, but just as bad as Etaín's). But they were young at this time. About 22 years old.

No updates for a little while (more than a week probably) because I have to study for finals and write papers and such.


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